Monthly Archives: July 2010

By Richard Renner on July 30, 2010 Posted in Corporate Whistleblowers,Government WhistleblowersThe Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued a decision this week that local government officials can be held liable for accusations they make against citizens when it is "reasonably foreseeable" that their statements will cause the citizen to be fired from their job. Martha Paige worked as an accountant for Bunnell Hill Development Company in Warren County, Ohio. She [&hellip… Continue Reading

By Richard Renner on July 29, 2010 Posted in Corporate WhistleblowersThis week, the Legal Intelligencer reports on how some employers are routinely investigating the social network sites (SNSs) of employees who make claims against them. Called "How Facebook Can Make or Break Your Case," the article is mostly about how Facebook posts can make the employer’s case and help break the employee’s… Continue Reading

By Richard Renner on July 27, 2010 Posted in Corporate Whistleblowers,False Claims / Qui Tam,Legislation,NewsCNBC released a story yesterday about the qui tam provisions of the new Dodd-Frank Act, the financial reform law. They call the whistleblower provisions "little-noticed," indicating that we here at the National Whistleblowers Center (NWC) still need to do a better job of informing the media about new developments in whistleblower protection. In the article, NWC Executive Director Stephen M. [&hellip… Continue Reading

By Richard Renner on July 21, 2010 Posted in Corporate Whistleblowers,Department of LaborLast week, I posted here an amicus brief for the U.S. Department of Labor’s Administrative Review Board (ARB) explaining how the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) protects corporate whistleblowers employed by the subsidiaries of publicly traded companies. What a difference a day makes. With President Obama’s signature today on the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, SOX is now amended to explicitly protect [&hellip… Continue Reading

By Richard Renner on July 20, 2010 Posted in Corporate Whistleblowers,Department of Labor,False Claims / Qui Tam,LegislationPresident Obama is scheduled to sign the Dodd-Frank Act tomorrow to enact the most significant reforms of our financial system in generations. Lawyers are already assessing some of those reforms, and we are focused on the new provisions for whistleblowers. My colleague, Lindsey Williams (Advocacy Director of the National Whistleblowers Center) already reported here on the substantive provisions of the [&hellip… Continue Reading

By Leah Williams on July 15, 2010 Posted in Corporate WhistleblowersThe Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (H.R. 4173) passed 60-39 by Congress today includes a number of provisions designed to protect employees who report fraud in the commodity and stock exchanges. This is one of the most important whistleblower laws ever passed. The NWC has compiled the sections of this bill that pertain specifically to whistleblowers with a one-sentence summary of each… Continue Reading

By Richard Renner on July 13, 2010 Posted in PharmaceuticalsDavid J. Graham, M.D., M.P.H., is a drug safety whistleblower working at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). On November 18, 2004, Dr. Graham testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance about Merck’s withdrawal of the popular anti-inflammatory drug Vioxx. He testified that FDA policies could not protect the public from drugs with unacceptable risks. "I would argue that [&hellip… Continue Reading

By Richard Renner on July 9, 2010 Posted in Corporate WhistleblowersMoe Hamdan owns the upscale Washington restaurant called The Reserve on L St. NW. Instead of using the restaurant’s income to pay the workers’ wages, he used it for his own lavish lifestyle. Some workers went six months without being paid what they are owed. "I worked really hard as a bar boy at this restaurant," says former Reserve employee [&hellip… Continue Reading

By Richard Renner on July 1, 2010 Posted in PharmaceuticalsSen. Charles Grassley today released copies of his letters to 16 big pharmaceutical companies about their whistleblower policies. Bloomberg news service is also reporting on these inquiries. The letters review Sen. Grassley’s efforts to strengthen the False Claims Act (FCA), and ask what the companies are doing to inform employees about the FCA, and then to protect employees who come [&hellip… Continue Reading